When UMYA launched the Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta, many in the nation and international community hailed it as a wise move to a particularly thorny issue. One thing that was unique about the uprising in the Niger delta was that the entire "militants" as they are called are young people (what we call youths), some as young as 12 years old armed with AK 47!
Their main anger was the neglect of their home land (where the "golden egg" is laid!). They bombed, killed, kidnapped and assaulted anyone (whether citizen or settler, Christian or Muslim, foreigner or Nigerian) connected to the oil industry. The FGN, in a rare show of wisdom, decided to engage these youths rather than use force. Today militancy is "almost "a thing of the past (even though most of the militant leaders are still vowing to go back to the past activities if they do not get their way!) , and we, the Nigerian nation is better for it.
Now another uprising by young people is rearing its head in the North. Call it Boko Haram or "barbaric and inhumane Muslim zealots in the Northern part of the country"; there is a problem with youths in northern Nigeria.
Pictures of the majority of the rioters (many newspapers carried them) are youths, some not even in their adolescent age carrying sticks and machetes. What does a child know about politics, talk less of feeling angered to the point of killing a fellow human being?
The main issue is why are these barbaric acts targeted at Southerners (specifically IGBOS!)? The answer maybe more simple than we would want to believe. IT IS ECONOMIC ANGER!
The same anger that pushed the youths of the Niger Delta to take up arms against their nation (a treasonable act whichever way you look at it). If the Amnesty programme had not come at the time it did, the Niger Delta and the nation in general would have become ungovernable for anyone. Many people who come to the north for business (particularly IGBOs) do not think that there is need for Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) or need to give back to the community where they make their millions from.
Outside government in most of the northern states, southerners (particularly IGBOs) run the economies of these northern states. All the major aspects of commerce in the north is controlled by southerners (mainly IGBOs), as such many of these barely literate northern youths feel that (maybe in a childish way) they are supposed to be in control of their economies. Now one may say this is not the fault of the southerners, but is it not the same reason that the Niger Delta "militants" gave for taking up arms. People feel that they should be in control of the "goose that lays the golden egg", in this case buying and selling!
Of course, it is unrealistic and downright stupid for anyone to say that southerners (especially IGBOs who have made an art of commerce) to leave the north, but it is time that IGBO commerce merchants start training and setting up northern youths to stand on their own, the same way they set up their kith and kin. It is unbelievable that an IGBO merchant would live in a place for 30-40 years and did not build the capacity of ONE indigene of the community to become like him, rather 10-15 youths from IGBOLAND would be beneficiary from his sojourn in "Hausaland". Can a Hausa man do same in IGBOLAND? Now that is not sustainable development!
Looking at the crisis in the north as religious or political is being naïve at best and mischievous at worst. Take it from me (I am a Muslim Northerner), 99% of the youths in the north are illiterate in western education and 99.9% are illiterate in Islamic education. But unfortunately, those they identify as "economic masters" are Christians and the only sense of identity for northerners is their language and religion (since they are not educated). I deliberately put language first because during these crises whether you escape or become a victim is not dependent on your religion but on whether you speak the language fluently and look like them. Many Muslims have been victims (killed or maimed) because they dressed in western clothes or could not speak Hausa fluently!
Northern youths are angry like their counterparts in the Niger Delta parts of Nigeria, but are worse off because the "Amnesty programme" they require is not only from the Nigerian government but from Southerners (especially IGBOs) who have the capacity but are unwilling to do it.
That Youth Corps members are targeted primarily this time around is not by mistake. They have been identified as part of the system and no longer non partisan. (JEGA did not think through about using the NYSC especially the effect it would have on the scheme itself). It is unfortunate that the NYSC is collateral in this economic war.
The IGBOs need the north (there is very little space and capacity in IGBOLAND to absorb the teaming population of young entrepreneurs from IGBOLAND. So like nomads, they need to move to greener pastures. Northerners are hospitable to anyone and resources like land and labour are easily and readily available. This is not so true in IGBOLAND and YORUBALAND. Therefore there is the need to rethink the very concept of doing business. If for example in a series of ten automotive spare parts shops, 4 are owned by "indigenes", the trickledown effect economic wise would be enormous and it becomes fairly difficult for rampaging rioters to target these shops as they know that some of their own would be affected. Anger towards the "haves" would reduce as these "rampaging Muslim religious northern youths" would start to believe that sooner than later the opportunity for economic emancipation would come.
Southerners have a golden opportunity to become the economic emancipators of the north but time is running out and the door of opportunity is fast closing. Engaging the rampaging northern youths and building their capacity is the only way to stop this less than animal behaviour that is taking hold in the north. Northern leaders are a product of the system so cannot do much (they even need the same "Amnesty programme" like the youths).
THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW
HAMZA
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